Twinkling of an Eye
by owluvr
Summary: A drabble collection featuring moments in the lives of characters. Throughout all times and ages. Chapter 5: Rose learns the truth about her mother's scars.
1. Rose in Wonderland

The Twinkling of an Eye

A/N-This is a drabble collection of drabbles about all eras. The ones that are for the NextGen will also be part of the Favorite Era Boot Camp Challenge. It will be combined with other challenges. This one is for prompt #12-Imgination and also for MadHatter's Alice in Wonderland Quote Competition!

"Come on Rose, go to sleep," Hermione begged but the five year old just shook her head.

"No until you read me a story!" she declared. Hermione sighed.

"Alright," she said, pulling out _The Tales of the Beedle and the Bard_, "Which one would you like me to read to you?"

"I'm too old for fairy tales," Rose scuffed. Hermione sighed again, and then went over to Rose's bookshelf, which contained quite a few books. Rose got out of bed and joined her.

"Which one do you want Rosie?" she asked. Rose looked them over, and then pulled out the biggest one.

"This one!" she said, holding it up proudly for her mother to see.

"_Alice in Wonderland_," her mother read aloud, "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Rose said and then walked back to bed. For the next half hour, Rose was quiet, listening intently. After a while, she stopped her mother.

"I don't understand," she confessed, "'Read the directions and directly you will directed in the right direction'? What kind of advice is _that_? And how do Potions make you smaller or bigger? Why doesn't she just use a spell?" Hermione smiled.

"The author of this book was a Muggle, Rose," she explained, "He didn't know about magic, so he used his imagination to figure it out."

"E-mag-in-a-shion," Rose pronounced carefully, "What does that mean?"

"It's like when your mind creates new things," Hermione explained.

"I have a big imagination!" Rose declared.

"I know, sweetie," she said, and then kissed her on the forehead, "That's enough reading for one night."

'Alright," Rose consented, "Night Mummy."

"Night Rosie," she said and turned the light out.

A/N-That was for MadHatter's Alice in Wonderland Competition with the quote, "Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction," and prompt #12-Imagination for Lilybug's Favorite Era Boot Camp! I hoped you liked it!


	2. The Trouble With Lies

The Trouble with Lies

"How could you?" I asked Marietta quietly. Most people would make this a _big _thing, in the middle of the hallways where everyone could hear and take sides, but that wasn't _me._ I preferred to have quiet confrontations where no one could hear and no one was talking about it the next day.

"It was the right thing to do," she snapped instantly, already knowing exactly what I was talking about.

"How was it the right thing to do?" I ask mildly curious.

"Because it was," she snapped and I instantly recoiled, as though slapped.

"But you almost got everyone suspended, including me, Mar," I said hurt, "I thought we were best friends."

"We are," Marietta smiled.

"Then why did you almost get me expelled?" I asked. Excuse me if that didn't qualify as "best friend behavior.

"Because those brats, Potter, Weasley and Granger needed to learn a lesson!" she said.

"But they taught us so many things!" I protested.

"Obviously," she said, "That's why I told Umbridge _after _I had sucked all the learning I could out. Now I know I'll do ten times better on my NEWTs!"

"But…Marietta," I said appalled, "That's so…"

"Smart, right?" she smiled again, "Now that _that's _out of the way, there's something I need you to talk about."

"But Mar…" I said. I couldn't fathom what she wanted to talk to me about.

"No, Cho," she ordered, "Listen to me." I have for the last few months. It's not like I don't _like _Marietta, but I wish that I could actually talk or have an opinion every once in a while.

"Okay," I consented.

"Whatever this thing is with Potter," she said the name with distaste, "It needs to end."

"What?" I asked, "Why?"

"Because he's _not mentally stable, Cho_," she said as though it was obvious.

"Yes he is," I snapped. I was surprised. I hardly ever snap at anyone. I usually cry if I'm upset.

"Cho," Marietta replied, "You _have _read the Daily Prophet recently, yes?"

"Yes," I said, staring at the ground. I knew what she was going to say.

"What do you think it's _lying_?" she asked, astonished.

"The trouble with lies, Marietta, is that once they start, the fiction has to be continued," I told her. It felt good to say that too.

"Listen, Cho," she said, "I'm your _best _friend, right?" I knew what she was saying. After Cedric died, many of my friends had abandoned me, thinking me a crybaby and "uncool" now that Cedric couldn't like me anymore. Marietta was really one of my only friends.

"Yeah," I replied.

"And friends should listen to each other because they _know _what's best for one another, yes?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. Do all best friends act like this?

"And breaking up with Harry is what's best for you," she said, "It would be silly for us to not be friends over something as _stupid _as this."

"Right," I said, dejected. I had to do this. It was either this or be a friendless loser.

"Good," she said, "You should do it as soon as possible. Maybe after class?" she went on to describe exactly what I should say until McGonagall stopped her from talking. But I didn't see him until after dinner and I walked up to him.

"Over here," he said and I walked over to the end of the Entrance Hall, "Umbridge hasn't been asking about about the DA, has she?"

"Oh, no," I said, even though she had. Several times, "No, it was only…Well, I just wanted to say…Harry I never dreamed Marietta would tell…" I couldn't figure out the right way to say it.

"Yeah well," was all he replied and you could tell he was contemplating my choice in friends.

"She's a lovely person really," I said, "She just made a mistake-"

Lies. But that was the trouble with lies. I had established she was my best friend, and now I had to continue the fiction.

A/N-I really _hate _Marietta. I always pictured her as someone who always has to be in control, but let's other people be in "control". Anyway, this was for the Hogwarts' Games Backstroke. My assigned pairing was Cho/Marietta (it didn't _have _to be a romance), with the optional prompt of "The trouble with lies was that once started, the fiction had to be continued." –Elizabeth Austen.


	3. The Right Thing

The Right Thing

Summary: Because altering her parents memory was the right thing-right? Hermione one shot for Fire the Canon's Hogwarts Games.

_If you could see, what I see, that you're the answer to my prayers_

_And if you could feel, the tenderness I feel_

_You would know, it would be clear, that angels brought me here..._

-Guy Sebastian, _The Angels Brought Me Here _

This was the right thing to do; I chanted in my head, this _was _the right thing do. This is for their own protection: for their own safety. You wouldn't want Voldemort to murder them, would you? I asked myself. And they'll be fine, they'll even be happy. They'll be happy, regardless of the fact that they don't remember you at all…I cried, sobbing into my pillow. It was eleven-fifty. Ron and some of the Order would be here in a ten minutes to pick me up. They had decided to do it in the dead of night, so that they would be less suspicious. Personally, I thought at the dead of night, it would just be _more _suspicious, but nobody bothered to ask me what I thought.

I crept out of bed, and every crack I made felt like an earthquake. Merlin, I'm loud, I thought. This is the right thing to do, I thought, twirling my wand between my fingers. This _is _the right thing to do. Halfway there, I stopped. There was a picture on the wall of my Mum, Dad and I at a fancy tea shop for my seventh birthday. I swallowed a lump I didn't know I had in my throat, took a deep breath (that came out shaky) and continued on my way. Who would've thought that ten years prior to this moment, I would be a carefree girl in a tea shop, laughing at my dad's feeble attempts at jokes and smiling at my Mum's ignorance when she didn't notice I stuffed yet another sugar cube into my mouth. I wish I could go back there and be that girl again, but I can't. I wish I didn't have to alter my parent's memory so they forgot who they were and forgot themselves, but I can't. I have to do the right thing. You know what they say, the right thing to do isn't always the easy thing to do. And I wish it were.

I opened the door of my parent's bedroom, took another deep breath and stepped inside. They almost looked like angels, sleeping so silently in their bed. They had no idea what their own daughter was about to do. I raised my wand, tears falling slowly and quietly down my face. I closed my eyes, took another deep breath and made a quick swipe with my wand. They didn't move, they didn't stir, but I knew that the spell had worked. In the morning, they wouldn't remember anything. Including me. I dropped my wand, fell to the floor, and cried and cried and cried.

This was the right thing do to, right? Then why did it feel like it wasn't?

A/N-Aw, poor Hermione…I've always wanted to write a one-shot about what happens when she alters the memory of her parents. This was for Fire the Canon's Hogwarts' Games Freestyle 100-1000, with the optional prompt of _The Angels Brought Me Here._ Thanks for reading!


	4. Not Hermione

Not Hermione

Even though she was smart, gorgeous, and her nose was dead center perfect, there was a problem with Padma Patil. A problem, and Ron couldn't figure out what the problem was.

It was the same problem that had prevented him from asking any other girl to the dance. He couldn't figure out why, but none there wasn't a single girl in the school that he felt like he _wanted _to take to the dance. Sure, there were beautiful girls in this school, but he just didn't feel…a connection to any of them.

So he hadn't. Harry and him both didn't have anyone to go with. In sheer desperation, they decided to both find dates as soon as possible. But every time he looked at a girl (and Harry must've pointed out a hundred girls to him) he always managed to find something wrong with them. None of them connected with him in any way. Then he absentmindedly decided to ask the first girl that he saw. That girl had been Fleur Delacour.

Big mistake.

She had refused him, about a nicely as Draco talked to Harry. But in the end, he found a date. Even if _he _wasn't the one that found a date for him, he still _had _a date. He was going with Padma Patil.

Even though there was nothing wrong with Padma, he still wasn't having fun with her. Even though there was nothing wrong with Padma, he didn't want to do _anything _with her-dance with her, get her drinks, _anything_. Even though there was nothing wrong with her.

So he sat there, watching all the couples, especially Hermione and that idiot Krum dance. Padma sat there too, looking extremely bored.

"Care to dance?" she had asked hopefully on more than one occasion.

"No," he always responded back, and she looked a little crestfallen each time.

Finally, some boy asked her to dance and she had left as soon as she could. He couldn't say he blamed her. He watched her dancing with the boy and felt nothing at all. Wasn't he supposed to feel jealous? He didn't. He didn't feel anything at all.

"Look," Harry whispered, pointing at Krum and Hermione. The song had changed to a slow one, and they were dancing together. All of a sudden, he let out a little growl and his heart's rate increased. All of a sudden, he started thinking the dirtiest, nastiest things he could about Krum.

All of a sudden, he realized the problem he had with Padma. Even though she was smart, gorgeous, and her nose was dead center perfect, there _was_ a problem with Padma Patil.

She was not Hermione.

A/N-Eh, I kind of liked this. But I hoped that you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading!


	5. Scars and Stories

When she was little, Rose used to wonder about the scar on her mother's arm. It had a word on it, _mudblood. _Rose didn't know what that word meant, which just confused her even more. She used to lie on her mother, staring at the scar while her parents talked about…whatever. She used to think of ideas of how she got it, but each was as silly as the next.

She had thought of everything from tripping over a rock, to getting scratched by a cat, to falling into a pit of spikes. None of them seemed plausible at all. She didn't like mysteries; she was like her mother in that regard. Everything had to make sense, and it had to make sense _now. _Once she had ventured to ask her mother about the scar.

"Mummy," she had asked, "Why do you have a scar on your arm?" Her mother looked at her arm and sighed.

"You'll find out why when you're older Rosie," her mother replied, "I can't tell you now."

"Why not?" she protested, "I wanna know!"

"I'm sorry sweetie," she said, "But I can't tell you."

She never asked again. Rose grew and evolved. When she turned seventeen, her family decided it was time to tell her the whole story. They had decided this when Teddy, the oldest had turned seventeen, he was old enough to hear the whole story, and two years later, when Victoire turned seventeen, they had told her as well. It became a tradition of sorts after that. After each cousin had been told the whole story, the younger ones would try and cajole the truth out of them.

Cries of, "What happened? What did they tell you? Why can't we know?" would escape from the younger kids mouths. But the older ones always refused to tell.

"You'll find out when you turn seventeen," Victoire said.

"But Vic," Roxie whined, "I don't want to wait!"

"Sorry, Roxie," she said and dashed away.

"Well, I'll grow old or die trying!" Roxie called after her, "I will find out."

"Okay," we all muttered.

"Now who wants to help me?" she asked. Everyone groaned. So when she turned seventeen, Rose was apprehensive about learning the story, but her curiosity outweighed that.

"Are you ready to hear the story Rosie?" her Uncle Harry asked.

"I think so," she replied. She listened as Uncle Harry told her about Voldemort, the prophecy and everything. She understood why she couldn't know when she was younger. And most importantly to her, she learned about her mother's scars. She learned about how an awful, horrible woman named Bellatrix Lestrange had cut them into her arm when she was being tortured for information.

But she almost wished she didn't.

This is for the Triathlon Event at the Hogwarts Games. You have to write a story with the prompts, evolution or any form of that, I will grow old or die trying, and the genre mystery. This was also for Lilybug134's Favorite Era Boot Camp with the prompt cat. Thanks for reading!


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